Moodle: Copy content from another course

Instructors can copy content from one course to another to reuse course activities, resources, and question banks. Alternatively, they can also request LITS copy a course for them, including courses from Fall 2017 to Summer 2020, which are archived outside of Moodle. Depending on the course contents, you may also need to copy the question bank and/or Panopto videos separately.

Before you begin, you may need:

An Instructor of record or Other editing teacher role in a Bryn Mawr Moodle course
A Moodle course backup (.mbz) file to copy content from a course that is not active on Bryn Mawr Moodle. LITS maintains an archive of backups of Fall 2017–Summer 2020 courses and can retrieve them to copy into current courses, see Request LITS copy a course.

Request LITS copy a course

LITS staff can copy the entire contents of an old course (from Fall 2017 onwards) into a new course shell for you. The copy will include all resources and activities, and any questions that are included in activities. If you need to copy Panopto videos or other questions as well, please let us know.

Go to our Moodle: Copy Old Course into New Shell form.
Fill out the course number (ANTH B101, etc.) and term (Spring 2022, etc.) for both the source course (the one to copy) and destination course (the place to put the copied files).
- If either course has multiple sections, please tell us the section number(s) of all relevant sections (both source and destination).
- LITS creates over 600 Moodle course shells every semester and Moodle administrators see all of them. We cannot look them up by course name or instructor when copying, so the number, term and section ensures we get the correct ones!
Fill out your name and college email address.
Click Submit, and a member of the Moodle team will contact you when the copy is complete.

Copy course content yourself

There are several different ways to copy course content. The recommended method is to Import content from one course to another. Other options include the Sharing Cart and restoring from a backup file.

IMPORTANT: If you are copying Panopto videos linked to or embedded in a course page, you must ALSO copy the recordings themselves in Panopto to give students in the new course permission to view them. See Panopto: Copy recordings to a new course.

Import

The Import process is the recommended method for copying course content from another course in Moodle. You can use it to import all of another course's content, or you can import select activities, resources, or sections.

Sharing Cart

While LITS recommends the using the Import function to copy content between courses, the Sharing Cart is another option. This method is only suitable if you need to copy a few resources or activities.

Add the Sharing Cart block to BOTH Courses

Copy items using the Sharing Cart

When you have finished using the Sharing Cart to copy content from one course to another, please delete all items in the Sharing Cart. The Sharing Cart is not intended for long-term storage of course content.

Restore from a backup file

Use this method if you have a Moodle course backup (.mbz) file and need to copy it into a Moodle course.

Copy Question Bank content

Moodle's Question bank organizes questions across multiple courses. When you copy Quizzes or Lessons from one course to another, the questions they contain are included in the copy. To copy questions that aren't used in a course activity, or copy the questions, but not the activities, use Question bank Export and Import.